In this movie, we're going to fill in the background, andthen we're also going to fill in the whites of the eyes.And we're going to make the eyes still biggerusing what's known as the transform each command.So I'm going to start off by pressing Ctrl+0 or Cmd+0 on the Mac in order tozoom out, and I want to create a rectangle that exactly fills the artboard.And I'm going to do that by switching to the Rectangle tool.Which you can get by pressing the Mkey ad just make sure that everything snaps properly.

I'll go to the View menu and turn on smart guides oryou can press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+U or Cmd+U on the Mac.And now I've noticed that we have all these tiny green alerts.As soon as I hover the top left corner of the artboard.I see the word intersect and now I'll just go ahead and drag all the way down untilI intersect with the bottom right corner of theartboard and that creates this big, ginormous, white square.I don't want it to be on the head layer.I want it to be down here on the bottom layer, the one called Field.

So, I'll go ahead and drag that little blue squareall the way down to the field layer and release.And now I'll change the stroke, this second swatch, to none.And I will Shift+Click on the first swatch andI will dial in a custom color once again.This time it's going to have an R value of 80a G value of 190 and a blue value of 200.And these are just colors that I came up with entirely subjectively.Now, just to make sure that I don't mess up that blue fieldin the background, I'm going to go ahead and lock down that layer by clickingon this Lock icon and now I'll switch back to the head layer inorder to make it active and I'll go ahead and zoom in as well.

And, just so that I don't have all these greenhighlights coming up on screen, I'll go to the Viewmenu and choose Smart Guides to turn them off becausethat is the end of my need for those smart guides.Alright, now I'm going to press the V key to switch to the Black Arrow tool.I'll go ahead and click on the top left eyelid.I'll Shift+click on the bottom left eyelid and I'llShift+click on each of the right eyelids as well.Let's go ahead and move them to the scratch layer or at leastcopy them by Alt or Option+dragging that blue square down to the scratch layer.

Turn off the head layer and I'm going to marquee justthe right hand shapes to start with, so that the lefthand shapes are no longer selected and I'll press Ctrl+Jor Cmd+J on a Mac in order to join them together.And I'll press Ctrl+J or Cmd+J on a Mac to join them again.And I'll do the same thing with the left eye.So, I'll go ahead and marquee it and press Ctrl+J orCmd+J twice in a row in order to join those paths.And now I'll Shift+Click on the right-hand eye.

Go up to the Control panel to the second swatch.Change it to none.Click on the very first swatch in the Control panel and changeit to white and press the Escape key to hide that panel.Alright, now, this time what I want you to do is pressCtrl+X or Cmd+X on the Mac in order to cut those shapes.This is just the easiest way to work and then I'll turn the head layer back on.And I will click and Shift+click on all theeye shapes just to make sure they are allselected, and I will press Ctrl+B, or Cmd+B ona Mac, in order to paste them in back.

As you can see here, that is not far back enough.The green iris over here on the right-hand side is covered.So, I'll press Ctrl+Z or Cmd+Z on the Macin order to undo that paste and I'll selectthe green iris shape because we now know it'sthe farthest back of any of the eye shapes.And I'll now press Ctrl+B or Cmd+B on theMac in order to paste those shapes in back.And I'll Shift+click on the left hand eye, in order to deselect it.And the reason is that the right eye will eventually be in shadow.

And that shadow will reduce the brightness of the white of that eye,and just to take care of that in advance, I'll go ahead and Shift+clickon that first swatch up here in the Control panel, and I'm going toreduce the red value to 200, I'll take the green value down to 200.If I were to take the blue value down to 200 aswell, then we would have neutral gray, but I'll Shift+Tab back to it.I want a little hint of blue in the eyes, so Iwill press Shift+ up arrow to increase the blue value to 210.And then I'll press the Enter key or the Return on a Mac to accept that change.

Alright, I still want the eyes to be a little bigger.I've decided.And the best way to achieve that, to scale each one of the eyesindependently according to its own origin point,is to use the Transform Each command.Let me show you how that works.The first thing I'm going to do is press Ctrl+Yor Cmd+Y on a Mac to switch to the outline mode.And that way, I can just marquee all of theseeye shapes, except for the eyebrow, in order to select them.And I'll go up to the Object menu and choosethe Group command, or press Ctrl+G or Cmd+G on a Mac.

And you may say, hey, wait a sec, Deke.You just got done telling us inthe previous movie that groups are somehow bad.Well, I find it discomforting whenIllustrator creates a group in the backgroundwithout my permission, because nine times out of ten, you end up with garbage.In this case, I want a group because I want to keep these eye shapes together.Now I'm going to marquee the left hand eye shapes like so.And just a partial marquee is good enough.And I'll press Ctrl+G or Cmd+G on a Mac, in order to group them.Now, I'll Shift+click on any part of the right handeyes to select all of them, since they're grouped together.

Now, let's say I want to increase the size of the eyes by 110%.If I were to double click at the scale tool, and enter 110%, like so.Then I would move the eyes apart from each other.And if I press Shift+up arrow, in order to increase the size of the eyes even more,they spread even farther apart, because they sharea common origin indicated by this little cyan target.Which is not what I want.So I'll cancel out.If you want to scale each one of thesegroups independently of each other, according to their owncentral origin points, then you go up to theObject menu, choose Transform, and choose the Transform Each command.

And now notice, if I increase both the horizontal and vertical values to 110% andI go ahead and select this central pointin this little reference point matrix right there.And I turn on the preview check box.You can see each one of these guys, each oneof these eyes, scales according to its own independent origin point.And just to make that even more clear, I'll change this value to 150%, and I'llchange the second scale value to 150% and you can see that they do not move away.Which is exactly what I want.Anyway, I want each one to be 110%, so I'll go ahead andchange them like so, make sure Transform Objects is turned on and thenpress the Tab key, so you can see the preview complete and clickthe OK button, not Copy but OK, in order to scale those eyes.

And I'll go ahead and press Ctrl+Y or Cmd+Y onthe Mac in order to switch back to the preview mode.And finally, I will go ahead press shift up arrow, in orderto scoot the eyes up a total of two points, because afterall, my keyboard increment is set to 0.2, and when you pressshift along with an arrow key you multiply that value times ten.Alright, now go ahead and press Ctrl+Shift+A or Cmd+Shift+Aon the Mac in order to deselect those eyes.And that's how you go about filling both the background and the eyes.

Not to mention how you scale each one of the eyesindependently of the other, using theTransform Each command here inside Illustrator.

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Released

4/22/2014

Designs dekeConstructed is a new series that breaks down the creation of cool designs so you can build them on your own. This installment is for everyone who needs an online avatar—that tiny image that has to communicate a thousand words about who you are in less than a square inch. Start by taking a photo of yourself facing forward—the traditional passport style. From there Deke McClelland takes you through the steps to transforming your photo into a cartoon avatar with Illustrator: tracing your features, refining and exaggerating the strokes, adding color and shading, and using gradients and patterns to fill in details like hair. Plus, learn some tricks for infusing your drawing with an extra bit of personality and exporting your final image in the best format for social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.